Written by Jessica Ardrey
Every student loves a day of class in which they get to slack off and have some fun. Not every student, however, gets to play with babies on that day. “Baby Day” is a day where they get to do just that.
Students in the normal language disorders class for speech language pathologists and the normal speech and language development class for early childhood education majors get to spend an hour with kids ages five and under once a semester.
They all go into the mirrored rehearsal room in the Reynold’s Building. They break up and half of the students play with the kids while the other half observe. The students look for things like language and motor development
There are also toys for the children that, at first, seem like a random armful of whatever was laying around the house. Tim Chance, an instructor in theCommunications and Sciences Disorders Departmentand teacher of these classes, says the toys were actually chosen very carefully.
“The toys were selected to elicitfine motor movements, like the pull-apart pop beads, andgross motor movement, like the baby stroller to encourage walking, pushing and pulling,” Chance said. “The bubbles were also a good way to assess object permanence. They’re here and then they’re gone. They farm animals were also a good way to encourage babbling and early words. Many animals are good one syllable early words, like pig, cow, oink, moo.”
When it came to choosing kids for the demonstration, Chance says it was just a lot of knowing people with children. He did have some trouble getting them there because of the early hour (8 am) and the flu scare.
Charlstie Patterson, a senior early childhood education major, is in Chance’s class and took part in “Baby Day.”
“It’s a good opportunity to see how accurately the stages we’ve been discussing were portrayed in these kids,” Patterson said. “It was good to get a break from lecturing and just have fun and it still be interesting at the same time.”
